I'm being chased by a real army! Even dinosaurs are here!

Main menu

Post navigation

The Perils of Passionate Pressure Pushing – Heartcatch Precure 16

The funny thing about passion is that it can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, when you feel passionate about something, it gives you drive and purpose and, in many ways, a reason to live. However, passion also causes a lot of stress, in a good or a bad way depending on how you take it. It’s good that you feel pressure to improve yourself to meet your own standards, but it can also cause you to become disappointed in yourself if you feel that you aren’t living up to your own lofty expectations.

Passion is a journey. It’s a pursuit of something that will never truly be obtained as long as the passion lives. Fulfillment lies within passion and it’s progression towards your impossible dream. Someone with a true passion will never be satisfied with how far they’ve come – always pushing to improve themselves – but they can achieve fulfillment from the feeling that they are sill progressing and still chasing that goal.

The passionate and yet unfulfilled is one who becomes frustrated with their progress. They may be lacking in patience or unwilling to accept happiness until they reach a certain level that they set for themselves. These people do not yet understand that there is no finishing point. They will always gain experience and always improve, and the achievement of solace comes with feeling pride in your progress instead of dwelling on the shame of your inequities.

Heartcatch Precure 16 juxtaposes these results of passion in the foil between Erika, president of the fashion club, and Azusa, president of the drama club. Erika is able to not only be happy, but also keep her friends happy by taking immense pride in their accomplishments, always praising the work of every group member and enjoying every little step of their progression. Meanwhile, Azusa gets angry when she feels that the work is not up to par and picks apart the flaws in her friends’ performances.

The troops grow weary.

Angry criticism is rarely ever constructive. In order to improve, one must be as aware of what they did right as they are of what they did wrong so that they have a basis with which to improve upon. Only telling people that they are doing something wrong and should be doing it a different way does not create a path for them to follow towards improvement.

Azusa mistakes the imperfections of her friends as a lack of passion, when the truth is that she is the one draining their passion by beating them up over their current progress. The lesson for her to learn is that every step of the road is important. Progress does not spring from nowhere, but is attained by continual pursuit and steady improvement. She needs to learn to enjoy herself even at her current level, and to be proud of her friends for giving it their all and moving forward at the pace necessary to proceed – which is not slow, but not fast – it’s just right. Not skipping steps and rushing through, but recognizing that the path is endless and that the only thing to savor is the walk.

Other posts on Heartcatch Precure 16:

Star Crossed Anime Blog discusses the focus on leadership, which is a skill that comes from understanding the limits of your teammates and knowing how to help them to improve constructively.

Do you have a lot of experience with magical girl shows? Of those I’ve seen, Precure has some of the LEAST annoying voices. I was actually refreshed that I thought the girls sounded nice. But in most of these shows, there’s lots of yelling and stuff in super-high voices.